


What If It Comes Back?

by pennypaperbrain



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Bipolar Sherlock Holmes, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 17:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10194509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennypaperbrain/pseuds/pennypaperbrain
Summary: This is a little addition to the Four Corners of the Western World Universe. It's filed here and not there as I think it would be unsatisfying to finish Always London and go straight on to this.





	

John’s explanation for Sherlock’s occasional visits to Regents Park would be that he goes ‘to think’. And he can think, these days.

Weeks, and then months, and finally a year, have passed since their return from Russia, since _It_. _It_ squats in the past, connected to but not defining him. Medication, regulation, and a number of other -ations keep its shadow in check.

But periodic reassessment is still necessary. This way, if weaknesses arise, he will detect them before ‘his’ psychiatrist gets a chance to pounce.

In the park there’s a scatter of woolly-hatted tourists – waddling toddlers – kissing couples – but they drown in the white noise of nature, allowing Sherlock’s internal signals to rise to the surface for review.

In the long Broad Walk there are branches and stone. The naked trees refrain from sheathing themselves in dripping glass anguish: check. The tasteless ornate fountain refrains from pressing on his eyeballs like an accusation: check. The sky is fresh and bright except for the still, straight trail of a plane: check. The winter is turning. Sherlock is not.

Check.

Distant sirens merge with the birdsong. ‘His’ psychiatrist assures him there is a good chance he can live in balance indefinitely now.

 _It_ was exaltation and pain beyond imagining. His life and death on the scales.

What if it doesn’t come back?


End file.
